A Future's Past
by SoulSpeak
Summary: And so, Barry listen intensely, his jaw twitching every now and then, at the gruesome details to Bart's tale of the past. Except this "tale" wasn't just a nightmarish story. It had been Bart's past. T because I'm paranoid. Please R&R!


**Hey guys! Sor ry for not publishing this sooner but here it is now! Heheh. I wrote this back in September of last year when I was totally obsessed with Young Justice and Bart Allen (not that I'm any less obsessed now)! Well, read on and please review!**

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Summary: And so, Barry listen intensely, his jaw twitching every now and then, at the gruesome details to Bart's tale of the past. Except this "tale" wasn't just a nightmarish story. It had been Bart's past.

Bart bolted up, his eyes wide and frantic. They darted around, searching every crack and corner of his room with deep prejudice. He nearly screamed when spotted a shadow move.

Or least, he thought it moved.

He managed to quell his wheezed panting after a long stretch of uneasy silence and constant reminders that he was in fact ok and that was not going to happen. Letting out a shuddering breath, he released the death grip on his blankets and ran a hand through his sweat drenched auburn hair.

The blankets were tangled in a rumpled mess around his legs. He furiously kicked away the sheets that entrapped his legs, as if they were the arms of Blue Beetle hitself and then scooted forward, resting his feet on the cool hardwood.

"It's just a dream. Just a dream. Nothing to it. Just a dream," he mumbled quietly to himself, repeating the phrase over and over again in hopes that it would actually comfort him.

It had just been a dream—no, scratch that—a nightmare.

Except he knew deep down it wasn't as simple as that. Nothing was ever so simple for him.

Once a six year old with a normal life, he could ramble with that overly excited tone about his school day to his parents, but the Reach apocalypse ended that when the two Beetles, Black and Blue, stormed through every surviving house.

He had only been a child back then.

However, he also knew that Jaime, the guy he had befriended over the past few weeks, would never do that. Not since he came back to the past and made a significant impact on futuristic events that once would have escalated into disaster.

Two raps at his door quickly followed by a creak nearly sent him jumping, his heartbeat seeming to echo off the walls. His head shot up and a cheesy grin forced itself across his face.

Bart released a breath he didn't remember holding and sucked in another deep breath to calm his jumpy nerves.

"Hey, gramps," he managed to say, though his tone lacked the hyperactive bounciness he usually possessed.

And was it just him or did his voice sound hoarse? As if he'd been screaming in his sleep or something of the like?

Doi!

Bart wanted to slap his forehead. That's probably why good old gramps was checking up on him.

Worry creased Barry's forehead into thick lines as his hand moved to flick on the lights. Despite the wide, silly grin his grandson gave him when he poked his head in, something in Bart's vibrant green eyes, his eyes flicking around the room nervously, begged for reassurance.

Something had really shaken him up.

Bright lights flooded the room and Bart blinked rapidly, snapping his gaze to the ground. After some shuffling, he felt a weight sink into the spot beside him.

A comforting arm snaked around his small shoulders in a one sided hug and Barry frowned when he felt his grandson's muscle tense. Alarm sped through his mind like lightning.

"Bart, what happened? Are you okay?" Concern colored the older speedster's voice and he squinted his eyes.

Right there and then, Bart yearned to scream a big fat "no" and blurt out the real reason for why he had made such a huge effort to come back to the past.

However, he quickly replied—perhaps too quickly—with a forced smile.

"Everything's crash. I'm okay, really." He glanced up at Barry and widened his toothy grin.

Barry simply raised a questioning eyebrow and sighed heavily. "Bart, did you have another nightmare? You know it's better if you talk about it." His tone bordered on pleading.

The way his grandson's shoulders slumped as his gaze roamed back to the floorboards already told him the answer. It seemed that his grandson's nightmare had something to do with his past, considering the unnerving silence that had passed between their exchange and the fact that his personality had suddenly taken an abrupt u-turn.

The red and white ball of energy who could never stand still for more than a second had become this—a scared and depressed little boy. It was almost eerie how quiet, how still he had become.

If Barry knew anything about speedsters—which he did of course, being one himself—something was dead wrong.

Barry was so used to seeing Bart as a teenage kid with an obsession with chicken whizzees, running around and talking nonstop without a care in the world. Seeing him like this was beyond depressing. It broke his heart.

Bart shrugged.

Then he kicked himself inwardly.

What was he doing? What was he doing? He needed to "get into character" pronto! But he just couldn't find a good enough reason to fake it. Maybe it'd be best if I just let everything out. He had already blown his Impulse facade already. In front of his grandpa, the great forensic scientist who worked for CCPD, no less.

He could feel a pair of critical eyes analyzing his body language and expressions. Immediately, he knew he had to tell the truth behind his Impulse persona.

Otherwise, gramps wouldn't get off his back, but in the usual, concerned fatherly kind way.

It's just that—the truth suddenly became so hard. Much harder than when he told his buddy, Blue.

Barry sighed and Bart lifted his head up, boring a hole into the opposite wall, as if he expected something.

"Do you want to talk about it? I'm here for you, Bart." A shoulder pat accompanied the sentence. "You know that, right?"

All Bart could do at the moment was nod his head, bobbing it up and down.

Silence passed again and only the faint tick tick tick of the clock could be heard. Well, that and Barry's awkward shuffling sounds.

At one time, the young speedster would have blurted out "well, this is awkward" with a nervous chuckle. Instead, he stayed silent and still and quiet.

"Grandpa?" The name hung in the air for what seemed like an agonizing minute.

"Yeah, Bart? Do you need something?"

Bart swallowed the growing rock-hard lump in his throat and let out a slow, shuddering breath. "Can I... Can I tell you something?" He sounded timid and scared and weak and he really didn't like it at all.

But that didn't matter now. Besides, this was his gramps—not Blue, not Nightwing, not Garfield, not someone else.

"Sure, Bart, anything. Anything you'd like."

This was it. The truth.

He really didn't know why it was so hard to tell a family member when telling Blue hadn't been so difficult. Perhaps it was because he wanted to hide underneath the mask of the childlike and curious Impulse forever.

This will be good for me, he reminded himself.

"Well..." The words gushed from his lips, like agitated white waters surging down the rapids of a river. A strangled hitching sob escaped him from time to time and the hot, salty tears would leak out of the corners of his eyes and drip onto his pants. Still, he continued. All the pain and misery and suffering he'd been forced to live through came spewing out. Half of his story was either speedy gibberish or mumbles.

Barry listen intensely, his jaw twitching every now and then at the gruesome details to Bart's tale of the past. A future that now ceased to exist for them, forgotten by all but one except his grandson. His fists clenched and unclenched, his nails digging red crescents into his palms as he tried to listen with a straight face, especially during the parts with the camps and Blue Beetle.

With a tired breathless sigh, Bart finished. It felt good to pour it all out. It was relieving and rejuvenating, but most of all, now that he had nothing to hide from his gramps, he relished the freedom.

He could practically sense the rollercoaster of emotions radiating off Barry. Bart gave his grandpa a fairly lengthy moment in speedster time to digest the onslaught of words. Otherwise, he would've seen the shell-shocked, horrified look on his face, which faded into sympathy and then morphed into amazement.

Amazement because no one, never in a million years, not even one with the combined detective skills of Batman and Nightwing, could have figured out that within the curious and overly energetic Impulse (with his infamous goofy grin that sometimes drove people to their wit's end), hid a brave young boy who risked his life countless times to travel to the past just to prevent a horrific future from unfolding.

Barry had absolutely no idea and Bart hid it so well.

Barry wrapped his grandson in a warm comforting hug, squeezing him tight as if he were afraid Bart would disappear and Barry would find himself hugging air. He felt the boy stiffen and then relax.

"Bart, I'm not mad at you, but you shouldn't have to suffer alone like that," Barry drew back and locked eyes with Bart, a mass of emotions swimming in them. "No one should."

Bart merely shrugged and averted his gaze, finding interest in the blank wooden floorboards. "S'okay. It's all over now anyways."

He heard the blond speedster give a heaving sigh.

A pair of hands firmly but gently clamped down on Bart's shoulder and turned his upper body slightly to the right.

"Bart..."

The speedster showed no indication he had even heard his name.

"It's not okay. That is not okay. What happened to you in your past is not ok. Please," Barry was nearly at the point of begging now. It pained him to hear Bart say the two-worded sentence so casually. "Do not ever tell yourself that it's okay."

A nod answered him.

"Please."

A shrug.

"Are you okay now?"

With eyes still shining with unshed tears, Bart slowly lifted his head. With the ghost of a genuine smile gracing his lips, he answered with a firm nod and a croaked "yes."

With a bright smile that splitting the boy's face, Barry figured that the age-old phrase was true. People who've seen the most pain really do smile the brightest, because they truly know how to treasure each and every memory—happy or sad—to the fullest.

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 **Well, what did you think of that? Also! I started out this fic by writing in Bart's dream but the I thought that was just too long so I just did the waking up part and the Bart/Barry interaction instead. Should I also publish Bart's dream? If I do I'll put it as part of this story. Or should I do another story?**

 **Please give me your thoughts!**


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